The next morning, I sauntered  to the ticket window at the train station and requested two tickets to the top of the Jungfraujock. The guide books had warned that the ride we were about to embark on was ‘the most expensive train ride in all of Europe.’ Most expensive?!?! That’s really saying something in this part of the world. Turns out those guide books weren’t kidding. I knew with certainty after signing the slip that my dreams of owning a real Swiss watch would never come true, and my nightmare of bankruptcy became one signature closer to reality, previous night’s winnings or not. But hey, it’s a vacation, so what the hell?

The ticket man looked at me funny when I exclaimed, “We’re going to the Jungfraujock, baby!” It was hours later when I realized the reason for this funny look. For three days I’d been pronouncing the name of this mountain as it is spelled: ‘Jung‘ like jungle, ‘frau‘ like frow and ‘jock‘ like jock strap. Of course I failed to take into account this region brought us Jägermeister, which, as anyone who ever went to college knows, starts with a ‘Y’ sound, not a ‘J’. It turns out the correct pronunciation of the highest point in all of Europe is actually ‘Young-frau-yock.’

Duh.

Jung… young… whatever, we were off on our European mountain climbing adventure. The small train, well equipped with sightseeing windows from floor to ceiling, whisked us through picturesque Swiss villages, taking us higher and higher into the mountains.

We switched trains in Lauterbrunnen, and boarded a rickety-looking cog train for the second phase of our ascent. This railway has a special third ‘toothed rack rail’ that the cog on the train connects with, essentially pulling the entire train up the side of the mountain.

The ascent was steep, and somewhat scary in places. I distracted myself with more excellent pole photography.

At 11,782 feet above Europe, the air was thin and the weather was frightful. High winds attacked from all directions as a blizzard dumped down snow. Boy, do I know how to pick vacation spots! Safely inside the tourist area, we asked a reasonably intelligent looking tourist holding a nice Nikon DSLR camera to take the requisite ‘Top of Europe’ picture for us.

Great job, dead-eye! Missed the whole point of the picture, ya chump! We had to wait until Nikon guy left and another intelligent looking tourist, this time with Canon 40D in hand, saved the day.

On our not-so-clear day, the view from the Top of Europe was impressive. I’m sure that on a clear day, that same view must be absolutely stunning.

The gale force winds died just before we snapped this picture under the Swiss flag. Of course.

We also took some time to explore the ice cave that some frozen maniacs have carved into the glacier on top of the mountain.

My favorite part of our visit to the Jungfraujock was standing on the metal grate of the observation deck, and looking five thousand feet straight down the mountain. Pretty cool!

The cog rail decent to Interlaken was just as perilous as the way up. Fiona and I handled the danger like pros, sleeping through much of the journey. Something about the lack of oxygen at that altitude wiped us both out.

Yes, by ‘both of us’ I mean only me, the old man.

Once safely back at the Hotel Interlaken, we continued our theme of plan-free vacationing by popping a few celebratory beers, then dropping a bottle cap on the map to see where we would be going next.

Fiona and I both cheered when the town of Strasbourg in the Motherland of France won the cap-toss.